The App Store Is Bigger Than What Steve Jobs Anticipated In 2008 Interview

FILE - In this June 7, 2010, file photo, Apple CEO Steve Jobs smiles with a new iPhone at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. In the white-hot competition for tech talent, some workers are alleging Silicon Valley's top companies conspired to keep employees from switching teams. A federal class-action suit claims that senior executives at Google, Intel, Adobe, Intuit, Lucasfilm, Pixar and Apple entered into secret anti-poaching agreements not to hire each other's best workers. And plaintiffs say e-mails uncovered during a U.S. Justice Department investigation put Steve Jobs at the center of the alleged conspiracy of so-called "gentlemen's agreements." The defendants say there was no conspiring, just one-to-one pacts between individual companies in the course of doing business and collaborating on innovative products. Apple is seeking to have the case thrown out. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)

The App Store celebrated its 10th-anniversary last month in which Apple marked the entire list of milestones that it achieved. Moreover, it also listed the impacts that it had on people’s lives. Now, The Wall Street Journal has shared an interview with Steve Jobs which was recorded in August of 2008. In the interview, Steve Jobs shared his expectations for the App Store along with other bits. So let’s dive in to see some more details on it.

Steve Jobs Shared The App Store Could Be A Billion Dollar Marketplace – It’s Much More

The 2008 interview with Steve Jobs is being published by The Wall Street Journal in both audio and transcript in collaboration with The Information. The date of the interview was 7th August 2008 – a month after the App Store was initially introduced. WSJ reporter, Nick Wingfield conducted the interview in which Steve Jobs detailed how he perceived the App Store and what impact could it possibly have on the lives of people.

Steve Jobs first linked the App Store to the iPhone like what iTunes is to the iPod. He said that the platform served as a way to enhance the device with content derived from the internet. His words were:

The way we think about this is that the App Store is to iPhone like iTunes is to iPod. Just like with the iPod, where we enhanced it with an internet service to bring content to it, we’re doing the same thing with the iPhone.

We’re enhancing it with an internet service to deliver content right to the phone. In this case, since we already bring the iTunes music content to the phone, we’re bringing applications.

We think that the result…It’s the same exact strategy as the iPod. Enhance the device with internet-delivered content. Beyond iTunes, we can wirelessly deliver the content right on the device, without a PC. We can automatically update the apps. It’s standing on the shoulders of iTunes.

He also detailed how the company moderates and monitors the apps which are submitted. After 30 days of launch, Steve Jobs touted that over 60 million apps were downloaded. Last month, Apple on the App Store anniversary detailed that the platform has 180 billion downloads to date.

Steve Jobs also forecasted that the App Store would one day be a billion dollar marketplace. However, as per the numbers shared by Apple, the App Store has paid over $100 billion to developers. The numbers are greater than what Steve Jobs had expected and they will continue to grow, keeping the trend in sight. Steve Jobs also told what apps were on his iPhone.

MR. WINGFIELD: What third-party apps are you using on your iPhone?

MR. JOBS: I bought some games. Yelp. I like Yelp. I bought Mandarin. You know Mandarin Phrase? Have you seen that?

MR. WINGFIELD: No.

MR. JOBS: This one’s cool. It’s a Mandarin audio phrasebook. This would be great if you were at the Olympics today. I’ve got the New York Times app. The Wall Street Journal doesn’t have an app. [laughter] I’ve got Epocrates, I’ve got Anatomy. You’ve seen the Netter’s Anatomy, right?

MR. WINGFIELD: Yeah, that’s the one with all the colorful illustrations.

MR. JOBS: Yeah, I’ve had their book forever, and I love anatomical drawings. I’ve got Facebook, I’ve got Units, I’ve Sudoku. I’ve got a great Sudoku game, which I’m actually getting pretty good at. I’ve got Bloomberg. The Facebook app’s pretty cool. A lot of people are using it.

Lastly, Steve Jobs also included the future prospects of the App Store. He detailed that a mobile is with users all the time and apps could provide service which is not practical on the desktop like location-based services and much more.

If you want to listen to the full interview, you can do so from The Wall Street Journal. There’s a lot more to the interview, so be sure to check it out. There will be more to the story, so be sure to stay tuned in for more details.

This is all for now, folks. What are your thoughts on Steve Jobs interview? Do you think the App Store is bigger than what the late Apple CEO had predicted? Share your views with us in the comments.